From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 9:18
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Chukas,
5767
The Snake Pit
By
Rabbi Joshua (happily known as The Hoffer)
Hoffman
The people journeyed from Hor HaHor, to go around the
land of Edom, and their spirit grew short. They complained against God and
Moshe, asking why they were brought out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, with
no bread and water, and saying that their souls had reached limits with
the'’lechem haklokeil,’ or insubstantial food, a term they used to refer to the
manna. God immediately punished them by sending burning snakes, which bit and
killed multitudes of the people. The people told Moshe they had sinned, and
asked him to pray to God to remove the snakes. Moshe complied, and God told him
to make a burning snake and place it on a pole, “and it will be that anyone who
had been bitten will look at it and live” (Bamidbar 21:8). Rabbi Yehudah
Sharabi, in his work Siach Pinu, points out that the word meaning “and it will
be,” used in this verse - vehayah - always refers to a situation of joy. Where,
he asks, is the joy in this verse? True, God was explaining to Moshe how the
snake would cure the people, but the entire situation can hardly be viewed as
one of joy! Rabbi Sharabi himself answers that, according to the early
commentators, looking at the snake helped cure, not only the previously suffered
snake bite, but other kinds of illnesses, as well, so that at least something
was gained through the experience. I would like to suggest two alternative
answers, based on some broader understandings of the entire
incident.
Why, one may ask, was there such a quick, harsh,
Divine reaction to the people's complaint? What was so terrible about their
dissatisfaction with the manna? Rav Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht, z"l, founding Rosh
HaYeshiva of Yeshivas Kerem B’Yavneh, explains, in his Asufos Ma’arochos, that
the character of the manna was such that it necessitated the people to
constantly turn to God in order to receive their daily sustenance. The Talmud in
Yoma (76a) asks, why did God provide them with the manna on a daily basis? The
answer is that a king who provides his son, on one day, with his needs for the
entire year, will not hear from his son again until the next year, when his
needs are again in need of being fulfilled. God wanted the people to
have to pray to Him, and so He provided them sustenance in a way that forced
them to turn to Him every day. Moreover, the Talmud says that if a person acted
properly, he would find his portion of the manna on his doorstep, but if he did
not, he would have to go out and search for it. Although the kind of life that
depended on the manna would seem, at first blush, difficult, it had the distinct
advantage of keeping the people close to God.
This basic
nature of the manna, and the relationship with God which it generated,
contrasted with the situation of the snake, who was punished by having to eat
dust, or, as Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffmann explain, food that was covered with dust
because it was always laying on the ground. Although, on the one hand, the snake
was thus assured of a constant supply of food, on the either hand, as the
Kotzker Rebbe and others explain, God was, in effect, telling the snake, 'here
is your food, and don't bother me anymore'. By punishing the people with snakes,
says Rabbi Goldvicht, he was telling them that their complaints about the manna
indicated that they would rather be like the snake, who does not need to turn to
God for his sustenance. However, God wants them to have a constant relationship
with Him, and the form of food they received was just a means of generating that
relationship. Based on Rabbi Goldvicht’s understanding of the punishment the
people received for complaining about the manna, we can understand why an
expression of joy is used. When the people repented, they did so out of a
realization of the importance of bring close to God, and, so, when they looked
at the snake on the pole in order to be cured, they did so out of the joy that
comes through the renewal of ones connection to God, which is really the
greatest joy one can experience in this world, namely, feeling that one is
constantly in God’s presence.
Another explanation for the
gravity of the sin that the complaint about the man constituted is given by the
Slonimer Rebbe, z’l. in his Nesivos HaShalom . He writes that the people were
expressing dissatisfaction with their entire experience in the wilderness, in
which their needs were all taken care of for them. Although living in this way
provided its challenges, it is necessary for a person to realize that whatever
situation he happens to find himself in, that is the precise situation that God
wants him to be in at the moment, and it is precisely through that situation
that he can grow and be the person he is supposed to be. Although he does not
say this, the Slonimer Rebbe's explanation seems to reflect the teaching of the
Bal Shem Tov, in explanation of the verse in Tehillim that is usually translated
as “ I have placed God before me constantly. The Baal Shem Tov, however, gives
the word ‘shivisi,’ – I have placed. – an additional meaning, explaining it as
coming form the word ‘shaveh,’ or equal. All situations in life, he explains,
should be viewed equally, because God, with His constant providence, always
places us in the situation that we need to be in at that time. If we view the
swift divine punishment for the complaint about the manna in this way, we can
then suggest a different reason for the use of an expression of joy when it
describes the people looking at the snake on the pole. In effect, we are being
told that the people looked at the snake on the pole with joy out of an
recognition that the situation they now were in was exactly what they needed at
the time, and, therefore, was something to rejoice about. In this way,
they truly repented for the attitude which had generated the swift harsh divine
punishment they had received.
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
To subscribe to Netvort, send a message with
subject line subscribe, to Netvort@aol.com. To unsubscribe, send
message with subject line unsubscribe, to the same
address.
**************************************
See
what's free at http://www.aol.com.